Optic Disc (OD) localization is an important pre-processing step that significantly simplifies subsequent segmentation of the OD and other retinal structures. Current OD localization techniques suffer from impractically-high computation times (few minutes per image). In this work, we present a fast technique that requires less than a second to localize the OD. The technique is based upon obtaining two projections of certain image features that encode the x- and y- coordinates of the OD. The resulting 1-D projections are then searched to determine the location of the OD. This avoids searching the 2-D image space and, thus, enhances the speed of the OD localization process. Image features such as retinal vessels orientation and the OD brightness are used in the current method. Four publicly-available databases, including STARE and DRIVE, are used to evaluate the proposed technique. The OD was successfully located in 330 images out of 340 images (97%) with an average computation time of 0.65 s.

Optic Disc (OD) localization is a fundamental step in developing computer-assisted diagnostics. In this work, an ultrafast method to locate the OD in retinal fundus images is presented. The proposed method is based on transforming the localization problem into two 1D problems by projecting the image features onto two perpendicular directions. Image features such as the directionality of the retinal vessels, the brightness and the size of the OD have been used in the current method. Two publicly available databases were used to evaluate the accuracy and the computation time of the proposed technique. The OD was correctly located in 71 out of 81 of the STARE images (87.6%) with computation time of 0.8 seconds per image. The OD was also successfully located in all the 40 images (100%) using the DRIVE database.